A lengthy post on the Roberts Space Industries Website offers new information on Star Citizen, the upcoming crowd-sourced space simulator from Wing Commander architect Chris Roberts (thanks Bruno and Matt). Chris describes his unrealized ambitions for an MMO version of Freelancer, and how: "With Star Citizen I was determined to combine what I wanted to achieve with Freelancer, with the personal experience that I think both Wing Commander and Privateer were so strong with." He goes into great detail on multiplayer gameplay and balance after outlining how multiplayer will dispense with the kind of shards of which he is not a fan:

In Star Citizen there is going to be one persistent universe server that everyone exists on. So you will never be separated from your friends, and if you want you’ll be able to join up and adventure together, you can. Due to the fidelity of the dogfighting and physics simulation we can’t however handle thousands of players in the same area of space. Even if you had enough internet bandwidth to handle the data going back and forth and a super computer for the server there’s no PC, even with quad SLI that could render that many spaceships with Star Citizen’s fidelity.

So the “magic” of Star Citizen’s multiplayer design is how we combine a persistent universe with a more traditional (and easier to implement) temporary multiplayer “battle” instance.

The way it works is that the persistent universe server, which we’re calling the Galaxy Server, keeps track of all players’ assets, group relationships and locations inside the Star Citizen universe. As the Galaxy server isn’t handling any realtime action it can handle our complete player base, which right now would be about 45,000 players, but is designed to be able to scale to millions if need be. The other key thing the Galaxy Server does is dynamically place players based on their location, skill level, alignment and player versus player (PvP) preference into battle instances. Think of a “battle” instance like a Battlefield 3 multiplayer session or a World of Tanks Battle with the key difference that the selection of players is done transparently and is “in fiction”.

ItBurn wrote on Nov 12, 2012, 09:37:Wow, you guys are fucking nuts.Obviously you never played Freelancer.This is exactly like the Freelancer setup. It's not magic, it's not impossible, it's not whatever shitty keyword you want to use, free-to-play, free-to-win, gw2-like or whatever. It's been done before, by him, and it worked amazing.The post he wrote is the best and clearest indication yet that this game will be exactly what fans want.

Also, please read the basics on the project. You constantly come up with facts that are completely wrong and things I personally have continually been telling you is not the case (based on clear information from their site).

I have yet to see arguments against the project that weren't based on false assumptions.

The posts I've done have been based on his words. Which I've quoted in past posts on the subject.Pretty sure freelancer didn't have things like MMO type play and premium currency that you can pay 2 win. He's talked about $10 or $20 million funding, so he obviously has a lot of private funding, and doesn't need my contribution. That kinda private funding is going to come with serious strings attached, which is likely the why he's doing the MMO/f2p elements. Especially when the private funding is much larger than the crowdfunding. That stuff is hot right now and lots of investment money out there to do it.Edit: Here's an article where the $10 mil figure is mentioned. linkHe also says on the websites home page "If we can raise between $2 to $4 million we have investors that have agreed to contribute the balance we need to complete this game"So the crowdfunding is nowhere close to what he needs for the game. He's using it to show private investors there's interest. Being beholden to investors comes with its own set of issues. In some ways its similar to being beholden to a publisher.Ah, here's where he mentioned the $20 mil figure, it was in reddit AMA, where he says thats how much they will spend the first year.link

Also, I found another item in that AMA. He says private servers won't have the features of the hosted ones. Good luck on getting that full SP experience on a private server."It wont be as full featured as the persistent server but should have more functionality and persistenace than just a multiplayer battle instance a la BF3 or WoT"link

Privateer was one of my all time favorite games... but this looks nothing like it. If it turns out its even half as good, I'll get it, but this is one I'm waiting until its out.

Here's one of my past posts as an example:

They are full of contradictions. It almost seems like he's trying to add every feature of popular games into one, just for the sake of having them.

Buy once, but microtransactions... also it will have gameplay thats free, so its F2P but not F2P? "Star Citizen will feature plenty of other ships and we expect players will want to earn credits and figure out which suits their particular style of play best. You can also upgrade to a bigger ship during the crowdfunding phase by pledging additional money." Hmm yeah, not F2P, but you can sure pay 2 win.

Not MMO, but massive and persistent and online, and single player. Which one is it? "This means that it is NOT a ‘click to kill’ interface like most modern MMOs" Like most MMOs? If its not an MMO, why are you talking about MMOs?

Continual updates adding new content, he's going to have to support that somehow.

Full modding supported, and do what you like on private servers... ok then why wouldn't I have everyone start with a bazillion credits to avoid the whole microtransaction thing? Or just have ME start with a bazillion creds. Or setup a store page to pay ME on my modded server to get much more creds?

He's not going to do kickstarter because he can't build fan base the way he wants to... but wait here's kickstarter!

System requirements will change, but here's current, GTX 460. Thats somewhat similar to the 560, which is around $150 right now. He would have been better off not saying anything about current requirements if it will change.

If this was $15 I'd jump on it in a heartbeat. But at $30 (for early backers, $40 if not), I'm going to wait until its released. Too many misgivings about how he's trying to throw everything including the kitchen sink into it.

Elessar wrote on Nov 12, 2012, 12:42:It's not the lack of faith, but the doubt in this thread that's a bummer. The guy (and his team) has $4+ million to work with now + whatever millions he already has. I think there's every reason to believe this game will amount to some, if not great, success. I'm personally looking forward to it and the lack of SP news isn't that discouraging for me, but that's just personal preference.

You're only as good as your last game, I would be much more confident with a developer who has been making games consistently like voltion who's grown in game making talent over the years. The people at volition (sadly owned by THQ) have some serious fucking talent that I'd love to see put into Freespace 3, tragedy it won't happen though.

It's not the lack of faith, but the doubt in this thread that's a bummer. The guy (and his team) has $4+ million to work with now + whatever millions he already has. I think there's every reason to believe this game will amount to some, if not great, success. I'm personally looking forward to it and the lack of SP news isn't that discouraging for me, but that's just personal preference.

ItBurn wrote on Nov 12, 2012, 09:37:I have yet to see arguments against the project that weren't based on false assumptions.

I would hardly consider being skeptical that Roberts can deliver everything he has promised without a publisher as irrational or "based on false assumtions". The promises he has made (and that is all they are at this point - bulletpoints in a FAQ are not "facts") make it clear the breadth and depth of this project goes way beyond what he was able to do in Freelancer, and that was made with the near-infinite resources of Microsoft.

I think Roberts is a space sim design god and a true visionary, but I still need more than a lofty vision and tons of wonderful sounding features before I can have faith that anything this ambitious can be done in the manner he is attempting. I'm hopeful, sure, but this wouldn't be the first time the product fell well short of the vision in a gaming project, so I remain in wait-and-see mode.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

Wow, you guys are fucking nuts.Obviously you never played Freelancer.This is exactly like the Freelancer setup. It's not magic, it's not impossible, it's not whatever shitty keyword you want to use, free-to-play, free-to-win, gw2-like or whatever. It's been done before, by him, and it worked amazing.The post he wrote is the best and clearest indication yet that this game will be exactly what fans want.

Also, please read the basics on the project. You constantly come up with facts that are completely wrong and things I personally have continually been telling you is not the case (based on clear information from their site).

I have yet to see arguments against the project that weren't based on false assumptions.

So let me get this straight, he's going to make a game that he wants to play....er no....you want to play....err no....we want to play....errr no.... everyone wants to play? Ya....not buying into that, but hey good luck!

Seriously, this game is free to play, pay to win, must buy it initially, single player, multiplayer, MMO.....wtf!

I think the game sounds fantastic. The info on the project has become extremely hard to follow with Q/A's on Reddit, CR and team answering Q's on Kickstarter, answering Q's in live chat, etc. It's a maze of information but from what I've been able to follow this project looks awesome.

The SP game should be completed first and at this point it's looking like the MP game will launch 6 months later. I'm planning on putting together a new pc either with an oculus rift or with multi monitors and a track ir.

I also love all the shwag! There should be bomber jackets and all sorts of shirts and such on the site eventually too! $35 ain't that much people, I really don't see how you can go wrong here. $35 I think it what it takes right now.

Prez wrote on Nov 11, 2012, 16:00:The more details I hear about this game the less interested about it I become. Does anyone not remember what a fantastic singleplayer game Wing Commander was? I so don't care about all of this multiplayer talk.

This is 2012 (almost 2013), not every game needs to ship with both singleplayer and multiplayer components. I believe all games should be having SP and MP sold separately, so if you want to play MP you buy that or if you want both you can buy the bundle deal. Also that way you can continue development and support independently.

That's fine (thanks for the year update though - I lost my calendar and was fuzzy on what year it was ). I prefer games be one or the other myself, not both, as it tends to make both versions weaker than they would have been otherwise. I just can't help be disappointed that the first game after what seems like forever from the best space opera game designer on the planet is so multiplayer-centric (based on the info so far anyway). Wing Commander is in my top 5 most favorite games of all time, and it neither had nor needed multiplayer. I'd be much happier if they were planning on working on two separate games as you suggest, but it seems that they are promising the moon, and when coming down to reality I expect the singleplayer will suffer since multiplayer with its microtransactions is where the money is at.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

Prez wrote on Nov 11, 2012, 16:00:The more details I hear about this game the less interested about it I become. Does anyone not remember what a fantastic singleplayer game Wing Commander was? I so don't care about all of this multiplayer talk.

This is 2012 (almost 2013), not every game needs to ship with both singleplayer and multiplayer components. I believe all games should be having SP and MP sold separately, so if you want to play MP you buy that or if you want both you can buy the bundle deal. Also that way you can continue development and support independently.

ViRGE wrote on Nov 11, 2012, 22:10:The Galaxy Server handles the persistent world, and then delegates some tasks to an instance server when going into real-time combat. At no point are they implying that this is peer-to-peer or that clients are going to be trusted.

Actually you're assuming that the "instance" will be offered up server-side and not peer vs peer unless you have other information than what's above.

Otherwise this isn't "unique" or special about the architecture at all (and it already really isn't). Boneyards did this with Total Annihilation back in the 90's. Starfleet Command pretended/aspired to do this in SC2 & SC3.

We'll see what happens. I've seen enough warning flares that I can easily wait until I see more of how this is structured before I jump on board or not.

Julio wrote on Nov 11, 2012, 17:52:I guess this means no personal servers to avoid paying microtransaction fees. Feeling better all the time about not funding this.

There will be personal servers. That has already been confirmed. Plus it wouldn't make any sense to release mod tools if they weren't going to offer that.

Where did it say that? I saw Sp with NPCs but nothing about private servers for you and your friends.

It has been in the FAQ since day one. The most relevant sections:

Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.

Players will be given full control of their game! When operating private servers, players will be able and encouraged to mod the game. It doesn’t stop there, though: we hope to institute a ‘mod approval’ process that will allow the best of the best player created ships and other additions to be integrated into the central persistent world as well.

In summary:

Persistent World Servers: We hostCustom Servers: You host

Private servers would of course not be part of the persistent world. It's analogous to hosting your own shard. I think there's been some discussion on whether private servers would be allowed to download player stats from the public server, but private servers uploading would not be happening for obvious reasons.

Flatline wrote on Nov 11, 2012, 17:37:I'm also not cool on this whole "not-real time" service the "servers" are going to be providing. That's an awful lot of trust to put into the client, and if this game is even remotely popular, you'll have hackers getting into it in no time and destroying the game.

I'm not quite sure where you're getting the idea that the clients are going to be trusted. This would be the traditional client-server architecture; the server controls all. The Galaxy Server handles the persistent world, and then delegates some tasks to an instance server when going into real-time combat. At no point are they implying that this is peer-to-peer or that clients are going to be trusted.

i frankly love space sims and still do my yearly playthrough of FS2 but i just can't get excited about this game because it sounds so ambitious i can't believe there's a disciplined team on the planet that can deliver it without a publisher's budget.

ViRGE wrote on Nov 11, 2012, 18:16:There will be personal servers. That has already been confirmed. Plus it wouldn't make any sense to release mod tools if they weren't going to offer that.

You can't say what there "will be", you can only say what he's claimed there will be. How, if there's going to be a persistent master server, will they deal with personal servers? How will they deal with modded servers? If I play on a personal modded server and give myself all the best items in the game, how will the master server handle me then trying to jump into a PvP game?

This is one of those cases where it sounds like he's thought totally in best-case scenarios and hasn't at all considered the potential for exploitation of the system. And that exploitation is guarunteed to come.